Reborn in Beijing: The Indo-Tibetan genealogy of a Qing Emperor

This seminar examines the Manchu Qing promotion of the Tibetan Buddhist literary and artistic genre of incarnation lineages (’khrungs rabs or skyes rabs) during the reign of the Qianlong emperor. 

Courtly productions of texts and images eulogized the previous lives of the Qianlong emperor and his Tibetan Buddhist allies as a community of rulers and scholars from ancient India and imperial Tibet to the Mongol empire and early modern Gelukpa monastic universities. The sweeping transhistorical and trans-geographical lineages, articulated in decidedly multilingual and multimedial terms, paralleled the Qing creation of deity pantheons, architectural replicas, polyglot dictionaries, and scriptural canons. 

Through a close study of objects that have recently come to light, and by contextualizing them within a broader culture of genealogical thinking between the Qing and Tibetan courts, this seminar considers the experimental nature of the projects and their deployment of history, language, and style in the creation of an inclusive and cosmopolitan religious heritage. 

About the speaker

Wen-shing Chou specialises in art of China and Inner Asia. Chou holds a BA in Art History from the University of Chicago, and a MA and PhD in History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley. Her 2018 book Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain (Princeton University Press) won Honorable Mention for the Joseph Levenson Prize (China Pre-1900) from the Association for Asian Studies. 

Chou’s research has been supported by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation Scholar Grant, the Mellon fellowship and membership of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Ittleson Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies, Kyoto. Her articles have appeared in The Art Bulletin, the Journal of Asian Studies, the Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, and the Archives of Asian Art.

Attending the event

This event is free and open to all, but registration is required. To register, please email Haruka Saito (hs77@soas.ac.uk).

• Organiser: Centre of Buddhist Studies
• The Buddhism Forum series is kindly sponsored by Khyentse Foundation

Image captions: Detail of the 14th leaf, Rebirth lineage album of Changkya Rölpé Dorjé, 18th century, Beijing. Individual leaf: 42 x 27.2 cm. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin